Leeward will fix Honesdale pool

May 1, 2012 —

“We are totally committed to opening the pool this summer for our town’s youth.” Eric Linde, owner of the Leeward Company, got an enthusiastic reception when he said that at the meeting of the Honesdale Borough Council on April 23. He said that his company will do all the concrete work necessary at the site without charge.

Linde said, “We will donate all of the concrete repairs, including the kiddie pool, repairing the cracks and refurbishing the lifeguard stations. Tough times are the time for the community to come forward.”

The company will resurface the parking lot with material from some of its other construction projects.

“We are entirely grateful for this generous offer,” said Michael Slish, chairman of the Parks and Recreation Committee, under whose aegis the pool’s preparation and operation falls.
The previous board did not put the money for the pool repairs in the budget since it deemed the pool expense as unessential under pressure of a projected stark shortfall in the 2012 budget. The current board, however, decided to set aside $25,000 from the contingency fund to open the pool this summer. A contingency fund is an amount of money saved from the previous year to take care of emergencies.

Still, there will be some costs to the borough. “As I see it, we will need about $19,000 to pay for repairs and another $55,000 to fully operate the pool, including equipment, pumps, filters, necessary chemicals, life guards, training and so forth,” Slish said. “The cost will be about $30,000 more than we originally thought.”

“I think we can cut down that $19,000 figure,” Linde said.
The question came up about putting the project out to bid. Such a requirement could delay the opening considerably. The state recently changed the ruling on the minimum amount requiring a bid, from $10,000 to $18,500.

“If the cost of the work on the pool exceeds $18,500, we would have to advertise for competitive bids and prepare a bid package,” said Scott Smith, the chairman of the borough finance committee. “If the cost comes under that amount, we would not have to put the whole project up. However, each item needs to have three quotes unless it costs under $3,000.”

Some of the items that are needed are repair of tiles on the side and cracks in the shell, power pumps and items required by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).